WASHINGTON — Federal investigators on Friday rapped BP for poor record-keeping at its huge Atlantis oil production platform in the Gulf of Mexico but said the problems did not jeopardize workers at the site.

The Interior Department agency issued an "incident of noncompliance" citing BP for not giving the government required drawings depicting changes to components at the site. But the bureau did not seek civil penalties in connection with the violation after concluding that the issue was swiftly corrected and did not pose an immediate safety risk.

Michael Bromwich, the bureau director, said agency investigators found "no credible evidence" that poor organization of schematics and technical drawings jeopardized workers on the platform 124 miles offshore.

"Although we found significant problems with the way BP labeled and maintained its engineering drawings and related documents," Bromwich said, "we found the most serious allegations to be without merit, including the suggestion that a lack of adequate documentation created a serious safety risk on the Atlantis facility."

The investigation was launched after Ken Abbott, a former safety consultant, filed a lawsuit in April 2009 under the federal False Claims Act alleging that BP did not have drawings that accurately showed how subsea parts of the platform were built. Those "as-built" design documents may be quite different from engineering documents that illustrate the original construction plan for the platform.

On Friday, a BP spokesman said the London-based oil giant had not yet reviewed the report but stressed that the company had fully cooperated with the investigation. BP believes "that Atlantis is and at all times has been safe and fit for service," the spokesman said.

'Not really surprised'

Abbott said in a statement that he was "disappointed but not really surprised." He took a jab at the ocean energy bureau, previously known as the Minerals Management Service, which he said aims first "to protect themselves and then the oil companies."

"They may have changed their name, but not their way of operating," Abbott said. Abbott vowed to continue pressing his case, which has been joined by Food and Water Watch, an environmental advocacy organization.

The group's executive director, Wenonah Hauter, said the bureau's report was "seriously flawed" and showed the agency was "protecting the interests of its industry cronies, rather than the public."

"The federal government dragged its feet on this investigation, and its findings are appalling - like a doctor's note for a truant student," Hauter said. "They are a weak attempt to cover BP's foul play. After all this time, the public deserves better."

'Inadequate'

The ocean energy bureau did not dismiss all of the claims against BP and pinpointed problems with the way the company maintained files in an electronic document database used during the design, construction and installation of the Atlantis production facility.

That database "was disorganized and inadequate to handle the large volume of documents generated by BP and its third-party contractors," the bureau's report concluded.

The investigators also said project files were sorted using a "confusing labeling system," that drawings had inconsistent titles and schematics were missing stamps and signatures.

After the blowout at BP's Macondo well last year, lawmakers seized on the Atlantis platform allegations and insisted that government regulators shut down the facility while Abbott's claims were investigated. But regulators rejected that request.

Congress - including Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., - said they were worried that because of the volume of oil produced at the Atlantis platform, a blowout there could make the Macondo gusher look like a trickle.

Operating in 7,000 feet of water, the Atlantis pumps crude from 16 production wells in territory far deeper than the destroyed Deepwater Horizon rig, which was drilling an exploratory well about 5,000 feet below the surface. Atlantis can pump as much as 200,000 barrels of oil daily.

BP has estimated that the Atlantis field contains recoverable reserves of 635 million barrels of oil equivalent.